2016 ELECTION POSTMORTEM

Irony: while the Republican heartland was collectively flipping the bird to the Washington establishment in the presidential election, it was inexplicably returning incumbents of the Republican Washington establishment to their seats in Congress. In effect, the divisions within the Republican Party have now metastasized into all three branches of the federal government Republicans now dominate, ensuring perpetuation of policies detrimental to the interests of working Americans. 

Trump, elected as an agent of social change on issues like immigration, healthcare and reproductive rights, basically represents the establishment on steroids in economic/fiscal policy: lower taxes for the rich and corporations, eviscerated regulation and increased military spending. These are the very policies initiated by Reagan that made the rich stupendously richer, the poor desperately poorer and the middle class mark time for over 3 decades, and are the source of heartland discontent with Washington. 

Republicans have adroitly managed to misdirect the middle-class anger stemming from its economic distress, to the “corrupt” Democratic Washington establishment into whose lap Republicans deposited in 2008 the excrement of their policy misdeeds. In so doing they have diverted attention from the real villains of the piece, the rich and powerful elite who, behind the scenes, pull the levers of policy for their own benefit, to the detriment of the People. 

When heartland Republicans eventually discover that they remain “forgotten” and economically distressed, they are going to be pissed, just as they were when Bush reprised Reagan’s Voodoo Economics with disastrous results in 2008/9. Bush slouched out of Washington with the lowest presidential approval ratings ever recorded. Reap the whirlwind, indeed. 
Sign on as a subscriber (mouse over the black stripe on the right) and comment.